Fig. 2

Phenylpropanoid-enriched broccoli extracts reduce pain behavior in mice. A OE was administered as an ip (20 μL, 375 μg/mL) treatment 30 min before formalin injection to the paw. At time 0 min, mice were injected in the rear left dorsal side of the paw with formalin as described in the Methods, and timing commenced for pain behavior (licking the injured paw); early (0–5 min) and late (40–55 min) are shown. For OE-treated mice, significantly reduced pain behavior in mice was apparent only during the early Phase I [0–5 min; P = 0.0032 (n = 8)], and was not significant in the later phase [Phase II; 40–55 min (shown on Left)]. VC is set to 1.00 for comparison of OE, and for the S9-treated OE. S9-treated OE (20 μL, 375 μg/mL) was significant for both early and late behavior as shown on the Fig.A (phase I P = 0.0018; phase II P = 0.0062). B. Pooled male and female mice pain behavior over the 0–70 min period indicated that reduction in pain (licking of injured foot) was significant with S9-treated OE but not OE. An unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction resulted in a P-value of .0012 for S9 and .2096 for OE (n = 8). C Mice were injected at T = − 30 min with OE. At zero, mice were allowed to explore in their activity maze as described in Methods. OE showed no significant changes in general mice activity, eliminating possible confounding variables in the assessments of pain reduction